


Finding Family

by Merfilly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Background Relationships, Families of Choice, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 06:47:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8361664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Kix has left the pirates and is a part of the Resistance. As Rey returns with Luke Skywalker, he meets her... and their pasts collide.





	

Kix recognized the ship coming in; who didn't these days? He headed on about his business, though, ignoring the _Falcon_ as he was trying to check up on Black Squadron's pilots, some of whom kept evading him and Dr. Kalonia. 

He had just ducked around Dameron's X-Wing, closest to where the _Falcon_ had settled, when he heard an incredulous voice in a faltering Mando'a calling to him.

" _Ba'buir?_ "

It was more the sound of his people's language that made him turn, to see the young woman standing near Chewbacca, paused there with an old man in a cloak that practically screamed _jetii_ to the former medic of the 501st. 

"Kind of impossible, kid, but not a bad try at the language," he said, distracted from Dameron by this new mystery. He walked closer… and that had to be Skywalker. He'd heard of the Jedi Master of course, even before he left the pirate crew to throw his lot in with the Resistance.

The girl dropped her head, shaking it, and then looked at him again. "You look like a man in my memory. One I know I called that word."

Kix felt a flash of pain on one hand, and an odd hope, as he thought of one of his brothers having a family. "Sorry, kid; I was a meat popsicle for all the Empire and a bit after. Couldn't have been me," he told her, watching as her shoulders drooped. "Anything you remember about your _ba'buir_? I might be able to place who he was for you, if he had a tat or art he always wore."

The girl looked back up, her face animated as she raised her hands, and drew, simultaneously with her fingers, two peaked points in the air. "Yes! They were on the helmet he kept in his chest, and etched on the butts of his blasters!"

Kix did not stagger, but it was a near thing. The Jaig Eyes had not been common. Only a few of the Vod'e had been graced with them. It was far too much for him to think this kid came from his very own captain.

"Rey." The _jetii_ spoke in a quiet voice, and she looked at him. "You should allow the doctor to continue his tasks. There will be time later to talk to him."

"Yes — oh I'm sorry! I'm Rey!" she said, sticking her hand out to Kix.

"Kix. And I will find you, later, Rey," he promised her.

+++

He didn't have to find her; she sat herself down beside him at the very next meal break he took, with a flimsi. On the flimsi was a Phase I helmet, complete with the Jaig Eyes.

"That's the helmet he kept in his trunk. Said he couldn't wear it anymore, like the armor that matched it, and he was maybe a bit older than you, but the bones are the same."

"They would be, Rey," Kix said, running a hand over his little remaining hair as he stared at the design he knew as well as he knew the designs of all his fallen brothers. "You don't know where he is, or you would not have mistaken me for him. And I don't see how he could be alive after all this time."

"You are," Rey said.

"Stasis for decades. And when they got me out, the aging, two years for one, kicked back in before I could get gene therapy to fix it. You're what, seventeen, eighteen?"

"Nineteen. Maybe twenty soon," Rey told him.

Kix snorted slightly at that. "I didn't even get thawed until you were already something like fourteen or fifteen. Rex would have been in his eighties, physically, when you were born."

"No, not so old." Rey shook her head. "Old, yes, like you look now. But not ancient."

Kix smiled wryly. "Thanks, kid." That didn't make any sense though. "What do you remember about him or others in your family?"

Rey looked troubled. "I am working on remembering more. Luke said that I saw bad things happen, and it has made my memory wrong, or incomplete. I remembered _ba'buir_ because I saw you. And that word, it is in the language he sometimes used with my mother, I think. She would bring me to him, to stay, when I was very small."

"The language is Mando'a, and we clones… yes, shocking, I know, I'm a clone," Kix said deadpan at her startled noise, "we clones were taught it by our first instructors. We then used it because our Jedi officers encouraged it, as a way for us to rise above our origins and be something more than fodder for battle." Kix's eyes grew stormy at the memory of what he had known, and what he had failed to deliver to his General, to save them all.

"Is there any way to find my family?" Rey asked him. "Since they are your family, too, correct?"

He blinked at her, then slowly smiled. "If Rex is your grandfather, you'd be something like a great niece to me. And maybe… maybe your genetic print will turn up someone else, a lead we can follow. Come back to medical with me after meal?"

"I would like that… uncle."

Kix decided he could get used to that.

+++

Kix slumped as he looked at the analyzer again. The kid's pattern didn't match his by a long shot, meaning she didn't have clone ancestry. However, adoption was something prized in Mandalorian culture; maybe Rex had embraced that. Oddly enough, the gene markers were pulling as strongly Mandalorian, as there were certain mutations that were unmistakable. 

It was one reason the clones had excelled, taking those evolutionary markers and pushing them to their limit.

Well, he hadn't matched the kid to himself, and therefore Rex, but maybe there was something in the database to give her a lead. With a resolute hand, he keyed in the genetic search, and sat back, waiting.

He didn't wait long, though, as the database seemed to handle her genetic pattern with ease. The names meant nothing to him, but maybe they would to her… until he saw that the father was dead, and the mother was missing, presumed dead. He sighed softly, worried about how this would hit, and decided it didn't matter. For whatever reason, Rex had been part of her life; Kix would gladly take on that role now. He stood with the printout to go find her, and found the _jetii_ standing there by the door.

Kix parsed his presence, the look on his face, and squared his shoulders.

"You already knew."

The man nodded slowly. "Her father was one of my best friends, an amazing pilot, and the only other survivor of both Death Stars. I met her mother sometime after Endor, and she told me about the Jedi she had known. I think Nik Sant is the man Rey is remembering, and he was never very comfortable around me."

"Nik Sant?" Kix's fingers flew over the datapad, and a file came up. He froze; the gene-print matched his save those small variations that used to irritate the Kaminoans. He called up the picture… and if that was the face Rey remembered, it was no wonder he had tripped her memories. "Who knew losing our hair would be a thing, _vod_." His eyes scanned the file further, and he closed his eyes to find a date and place of death, well before Kix had been rescued.

"I don't know how she is going to handle the news, especially as I cannot answer where her mother might be, or why she was taken to Jakku of all places," the _jetii_ said.

"If Rex allowed her to call him _ba'buir_ , then she has family," Kix declared. "Me. I might be the last of my kind, but I'll be damned if I let that kid be alone in the galaxy when we've got a common tie." He took the printouts, including one for Rex, no matter what that name said, and went to go find the girl he had just adopted into his heart.

He didn't see the _jetii_ smile approvingly or move on silently.

+++

Rey blinked, fighting against tears. Tears wasted water. She'd hoped…

"We don't know about your mother. We've got a name, a gene print, even her origin," Kix said softly, before he shifted a little, uneasy with that refusal to let go of her emotions. It was too familiar, given the stoicism that ran through the GAR. "And I bet the older people around here might have stories about your dad. Had to have been a hell of a pilot, if he survived both Death Stars."

She gasped a laugh, and a few tears escaped. "Must get it natural, then," she said, reaching up to wipe them away. "So, the man—"

"Rey, adoption is common among Mandalorians. If he let you call him that, he was. Whether because he took a liking to you, or he'd served as father-figure to your mother. Either way, you're my family now… if you'll have me."

The next thing he knew, Kix had her wrapping her arms around his neck, holding on like she was his old commander, and all he could do was hug her back. They might not have much, but they would have each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Mando'a: Ba'buir = grandparent, Jetii = Jedi, Vod = sibling
> 
> Nik Sant is the name given for the elderly Rebel on Endor, who Dave Filoni believes to be Rex. Going with my usual fixit that Ahsoka mucked with Rex's aging when she saw how old he had gotten… and it sort of stuck there.
> 
> For those that don't follow it, Wedge Antilles showed up in Rebels, and Sabine Wren was part of his defection to the Rebellion. Going with the idea that a lot of Rebels waited until the Empire was more than broken to have kids.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Five Times Sabine Met Luke](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8425147) by [Charity_Angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charity_Angel/pseuds/Charity_Angel)




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